Shadow bankers with a turnover of 600 million rubles were detained in St. Petersburg

The economic Police of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, together with employees of the FSB and the North-Western Operational Customs, detained three people on suspicion of illegal banking activities. The total turnover of funds amounted to 600 million rubles, the income of the attackers was 24 million rubles. This was announced on April 16 by the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city and region.

"The defendants performed the functions of so—called shadow bankers, providing services for cashing out funds through controlled organizations," the publication says in the Telegram channel of the department.

The scheme involved men aged 42 and 36, as well as a 39-year-old woman. They organized a channel for withdrawing money outside the country under the guise of paying for foreign trade contracts, providing banks with fictitious documents for the supply of construction materials and other products.

During the searches, communications equipment, money and equipment were seized from the detainees. Criminal cases have been initiated under Articles 172 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Illegal banking activities") and Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Organization of a criminal community or participation in it"). All three are in custody.

Non-cash participation: banks have begun to compensate small businesses for rising VAT costs

Will this allow entrepreneurs to save money and how will the initiative affect inflation?

The official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Svetlana Petrenko, reported on April 15 that the FSB, together with the Investigative Committee, had stopped the activities of an organized group in Moscow that evaded taxes. Since 2023, the attackers have created a network of more than 4 thousand transit organizations, through which more than 40 thousand companies have received fictitious VAT deductions. As a result of the group's actions, the Russian budget did not receive more than 1 trillion rubles in taxes.

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